The teachers' union is asking parents to withdraw their kids from B.C.'s annual Foundation Skills Assessment tests taking place this month for Grade 4 to 7 children even though the content of the exam and how results are measured have been changed from previous years.
Ken Christensen, president of the Coquitlam Teachers' Association, said teachers sent the letter out — as they do each year — to encourage families to keep their kids from taking the exams because of concerns about how third parties use the information and because it takes time away from instructional time.
“The current government did not agree to randomize the data and, as such, our opposition to the test remains,” said Christensen, whose union distributed letters to parents asking them to excuse their children from the tests that measure how well students are progressing in reading, writing and numeracy.
The Fraser Institute uses the data to compare schools, Christensen said, and other groups use the results to pit one school against the other.
“You’ll have real estate agents that will be quoting this information. It encourages this kind of have- and have-not mentality [such as] ‘OK, I can’t send my kids to that school because they have lousy FSA results,’” Christensen said.
He said the test results don’t indicate the quality of education at that school, especially in neighbourhoods with inner-city schools with students from varying backgrounds.
“There’s a lot of high-needs schools in the Tri-Cities, and it’s not necessary to name them and it doesn’t mean the schools in those neighbourhoods are not as good schools as a result of their performances on the FSA test. There is no way it measures quality of schools in any way shape or form."
Since the letter was introduced years ago, under a permission agreement with the BC Public Schools Employers’ Association, more parents have asked their children to be excused, Christensen said., and when they do, their children just do other work.
In the letter from Glen Hansman, president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, parents are reminded that FSA tests do not count toward marks and “do not help students learn or teachers teach.”
“Teachers do not believe the FSA is a reliable method of measuring individual progress. Research says the large-scale assessment is more useful for broadly evaluating the educational system and its programs.”
Parents interested in their child’s progress should contact the teacher instead, the letter notes.
According to a provincial government website, FSA tests will be held been Oct. 1 and Nov 9 and have been updated to be in agreement with the revised curriculum which focuses on collaboration, communication, critical thinking and the foundations of literacy and numeracy.
